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COVID-19 Response: States That Run Their Own ACA Marketplace Are Better Positioned to Help Consumers Get Covered
This blog was originally posted on the Georgetown Center on Health Insurance Reforms’ CHIRBlog. As COVID-19 cases climb, social distancing – the best tool we have to bring the virus to heel – has wrought an unprecedented loss of jobs, income, and health coverage. Over the coming months, the uninsured rate is expected to skyrocket. In the…
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Approved Disaster Relief SPAs Reduce Burdens on Beneficiaries
CMS has begun approving states’ disaster relief State Plan Amendments in response to the COVID-19 crisis. As my colleague Tricia Brooks recently described, these SPAs allow states to make temporary changes to eligibility, enrollment, and cost-sharing policies among others flexibilities. It is important to note that the changes requested, and subsequently approved, in the disaster…
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Pandemic Induced Pragmatism: The State of Medicaid Waiver Policy
Amongst other ways in which life has dramatically changed in the last month, Section 1115 Medicaid waiver terrain has experienced a tectonic shift. For those of us who have been responding to massive numbers of public comment periods over the past two-plus years, only one waiver opened for public comment that we are commenting on…
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Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility Verification Flexibilities Help States Keep up with Increased Application Volume due to COVID-19
As more and more Americans file unemployment claims, we can expect an increase in Medicaid applications. This increased demand comes at a time when Medicaid eligibility enterprises are challenged with transitioning eligibility workers to telework and may be experiencing workforce shortages due to worker illness or family caretaking responsibilities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. But…
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Recent Medicaid Expansion Activity in Eight States during the COVID-19 Crisis
As states respond to the COVID-19 crisis, those that have yet to expand Medicaid are facing rising calls to reverse their opposition and quickly provide affordable health care to millions of residents. The oncoming double hit to states of rising numbers of residents needing advanced, expensive health care coupled with truly staggering job losses –…
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States Should Accept all Federal Funding Already on Table to Fill as Many Health Coverage Gaps as Possible While Pressing for More
States are under tremendous pressure to continue to provide essential services even as resources dwindle, underscoring the importance of the 6.2 percentage point increase in the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) in the Families First Coronavirus Response legislation Congress passed last month. Unfortunately, the health and economic consequences of this pandemic necessitate an even bolder…
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Solution to Maternal Health Crisis Must Center on Medicaid
Earlier this month, CCF submitted comments to the Senate Finance Committee with recommendations to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity and help mothers and babies thrive together. At the heart of our comments was this: Medicaid must be at the center of any efforts to solve to this crisis. Here’s why. Medicaid paid for nearly half…
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COVID-19 and Immigrant Health
Now, more than ever, it’s critical that everyone has access to health coverage. The only way to effectively respond to a pandemic is to make sure that everyone can get the screening and treatment they need. Unfortunately, even with three new laws to address the COVID-19 public health emergency, there are still gaps in coverage,…
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COVID-19 is exposing Florida’s shockingly high number of uninsured Latinx kids
Orlando Weekly The coronavirus health crisis has many Americans without health insurance on edge, and a new report says Latino children are increasingly vulnerable. Between 2016 and 2018, both the number and rate of uninsured Latino children in the U.S. increased significantly, according to the report by UnidosUS and the Georgetown University Center for Children…
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COVID-19 makes it clear: Medicaid block grants will make everyone worse off
The Hill The Trump administration prepares for the best instead of the worst. … Furthermore, Medicaid is countercyclical — increasing in size and scope when the economy turns downward. The federal matching rate, which has been increased under the emergency COVID-19 relief package, injects dollars into state economies. As Edwin Park from Georgetown University Center for Children…
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Hospitals await details as emergency fund allocations begin
Roll Call Background provided by Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University Center for Children and Families The Trump administration is beginning to distribute money from a new $100 billion hospital emergency fund to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the hardest-hit hospitals are not prioritized in the first wave of money, and parameters on…
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Medicaid, CHIP, and COVID-19 Webinar
https://sqps.onstreamsecure.com/origin/InfiniteConferencing/Web%20Recordings/DatedRecordings/040720/Georgetown/040720GEORGETOWN.mp4 Download the slide deck.
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The Rate of Uninsured Infants and Toddlers is Growing. Don’t Let COVID-19 Pandemic Make Things Worse
Three+ weeks into my at-home work existence with a fellow teleworking spouse, a 3rd grader and a preschooler and I’ve found a new base level of stress, despite yoga, workouts, mediation and ALL of the deep breaths. It’s hard. And yet our family is among the luckiest of Americans. We are safe and healthy. We…
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Kids Lose Access to Critical Health Care Source When Schools Shutter Due to COVID-19
In some schools, nurses deliver the first dose of asthma medicine to students who need it every morning. In others, dentist technicians show up to clean children’s teeth and look for cavities. Across the country, school-based physical and mental health therapists support students with disabilities. With more than 120,000 schools nationwide shuttered for the foreseeable…
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Expanded Coverage for COVID-19 Testing is an Important Step, But Loopholes Expose All of Us to Greater Risk
[This blog was originally posted on the Georgetown Center on Health Insurance Reforms’ CHIRBlog.] After a delayed response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has significantly picked up the pace. In the space of three weeks, Congress enacted three stimulus bills: An $8.3 billion emergency appropriations bill (March 6), the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (March…
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Rate of Uninsured Infants and Toddlers on the Rise
Introduction The percentage of infants and toddlers without health insurance is growing. The overall rate of uninsured children under 3 increased significantly for the first time in several years, growing from 3.5 percent in 2016 to 4.1 percent in 2018 (see Figure 1). This trend mirrors the national increase in the uninsured rate for all…
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Medicaid Work Requirements and COVID-19: The Wheels Come Off
The wheels have come off of the CMS Administrator’s work requirements bus tour. Ill-conceived from the start, the Administrator’s effort to “reframe” Medicaid has been brought to an abrupt halt by the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic collapse, and the Congressional response, which prohibits states from disenrolling resident Medicaid beneficiaries for any reason, including work…
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Medicaid will be a coronavirus lifeline
Axios Medicaid will be a lifeline for droves of Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Why it matters: Medicaid has long been the safety net that catches people during hard times, but a crisis of this magnitude will call upon the program — and strain states’ budgets — like never before. (Herman, 4/1) … Read…
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Medicaid Nearing ‘Eye Of The Storm’ As Newly Unemployed Look For Coverage
Kaiser Health News As the coronavirus roils the economy and throws millions of Americans out of work, Medicaid is emerging as a default insurance plan for many of the newly unemployed. That could produce unprecedented strains on the vital health insurance program, according to state officials and policy researchers. Americans are being urged to stay…
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MACPAC Watching Lessons Learned From COVID-19 Response In Medicaid
Inside Health Policy The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission indicated Thursday (April 2) that it will closely monitor lessons learned in Medicaid after the coronavirus pandemic is over, including how Medicaid expansion states fared over non-expansion states. … Commissioner Tricia Brooks called on the commission to encourage CMS to back down on its…
